


Roll Check

by 2towels



Series: Shut Up and Roll the Dice [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe- Dungeons and Dragons, DM discourse, DnD AU, Dungeons and Dragons AU, Klance Week 2017, Klance Week 2017: Sacrifice, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pidge bitches, i continued it yay, jk jk i liked this i hope you guys like it too, living vicariously through dungeons and dragons, me beating a dead horse in the background and asking if you are all happy, they don't actually play in this one it's just the same universe as roll initiative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 08:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10940931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2towels/pseuds/2towels
Summary: "Wait," Keith paused in their conversation, gesturing towards Lance with a loose hand while the other crossed over his chest. "You DM?"---Lance reveals a part of his backstory to Keith, who doesn't want to go through with his destiny.Klance Week 2017 Day 2: Sacrifice





	Roll Check

The tense silence ended with Allura's deep breath, signaling the relaxation of everyone around the table. The Galra were reestablished as horrible, but at least they had delivered their bounty and received their reward. That was all they could ask for, with a campaign as long and exhausting as the ones carved by their current dungeon master.

"Thank space it's over." Pidge mourned, standing with a startling screech being made from the chair below her. "Allura's not allowed to DM for at least three Shiro-level campaigns. I'm done."

Shiro blanched. "I'm not doing three campaigns in a row, before any of you ask. My next one isn't ready, so who wants to step up?" He asked, mentally ticking off all he needed to do to properly prepare for the next adventure he had lined up. Without warning, his gaze shifted to Keith expectantly, who immediately tensed.

The reaction wasn't missed by the rest of the group, Allura especially. "Have you written something up, Keith?"

Shiro smiled encouragingly, but Keith didn't seem receptive of the notion. "Sure." The younger brother conceded slowly. "I could...you know." His nose scrunched and he looked back up at the group. There was no nervousness in his tone, but he certainly seemed disinterested.

Lance, from across the table, watched the scrunch of his nose with overt interest.

"Excellent. We'll meet at Shiro and Keith's place, then?" Allura asked for confirmation, folding her partition and stacking books as the rest of the table followed suit with their clean up.

Shiro nodded and answered for them, Keith distracted by his listless gathering of his own character notes. "That sounds fine. We'll text the group chat with any change of plans, but remember guys: we don't provision as well as Coran, so make sure you bring some of your favorite snacks on your own."

Together, Hunk and Lance grumbled, but they were ignored. As the rest of the table stood, Lance wandered off to find Coran, calling for a space juice order for the next week to hold them over. Hunk eyed his friend from behind with a true disdain, unable to fathom his ability to consume the syrupy product.

"Keith, you'll be okay, right?" Shiro asked quietly, glancing at his watch, "You're not too tired to ride?"

He huffed in response, noting the time himself. "I'll be fine, Shiro. I'll see you at home." Despite having so few papers and items to pack up, he took his time pulling on his coat while Shiro left, lingering if only to keep conversation steady with his closest friends while they were all gathered.

"I'm bringing my new documentaries for you next week, Keith. Later!" Pidge and Matt were the next to leave, tending to carpool despite their different living situations, and Allura patiently lingered in her dining room with her stacked books while the remaining guests shuffled around. When Lance wandered back from the kitchen to his awaiting best friend and the shuffling Keith and Allura, he was humming pleasantly and moving to finally gather his things.

Hunk was slightly dismayed at his friend's lingering, tire easy to see in the yawn he released loudly. "Hurry up, Lance." He bemoaned, watching his friend's disorganization.

"I'll give him a ride home." Keith blurted out, "If you want to head out, Hunk."

Lance, weirdly hesitant, flicked his eyes up towards Hunk. A moment passed of silence, and after, Lance's thin shoulders shrugged. "Alright then." Hunk said, a weird emphasis on his words, "I'll see you at home, Lance. Night, Allura! See ya, Keith." He moseyed to the door and tossed a wave over his shoulder, casting another meaningful glance to Lance before exiting fully and shutting the door behind him.

"Well." Allura hummed, "Lance, you know the house as good as any. Lock the door behind you and don't let the cats out. I'm off to sleep."

Keith watched their newly retired dungeon master wander away into the home, flicking the light dimmer off as she passed the switch, and took a deep breath. He was oddly calm, knowing he was being shoved opportunities by the dozens through his friends these days, but he didn't feel the need to follow through with their implications when he was so unsure, truthfully, of what he was doing in this situation. Lance was fine with being left alone, or so he seemed cheerful to pretend so, waving enthusiastically at Allura's retreating back and calling out, "Night, princess!"

A beat passed of Lance finishing his personal item gathering. "So," He said, "Giving me a ride, huh, Mullet?"

Keith bristled in response, feeling the pull of the bait and jumping at it anyway. "Yup. Hunk looked tired, you should stop joking around after games when he's had a bad run. It makes him mope and complain."

"That's just Hunk." Lance laughed, throwing his head back a little, "And he ignores my moping and complaining all the time, so I think that's fair."

"You're admitting you mope and complain constantly, then?" Keith challenged, maneuvering to the door and holding it open for his companion.

A snort came from him as he passed, lingering outside the door so Keith could come out and he could lock it behind them. "Excuse you. I'll admit I'm whiny when you admit you're emo and love that job at Hot Topic."

There was the bait he could actually resist. With a shrug, Keith shut the door behind him and descended the few steps that led from Coran's home to the street. "It pays the bills for now."

"It does  _not_ ." Lance gaped, "You love all the dramatic music and spinney racks of gauges and belly rings. That's the only reason you stay."

"You're right." He responded seriously, watching as Lance fiddled with his keys and twisted at the locks quickly. "I can't wait to put my gauges in."

Lance did a double take, not able to discern the tone Keith was using. "You're not getting gauges. Your mullet would get all clogged in the holes." He challenged, stepping down to meet him face to face, "And you would just look more like Red, proving you are a self-insert."

Unable to stop himself from retaliation towards comments on his dungeons and dragons character, Keith huffed, knowing full well his potato chip breath was fanned directly into Lance's general line of scent. He sputtered accordingly while Keith took another half-step closer. "I'm no more Red than you are Azulle." Keith accused, keeping his eyes steady with the finer gaze of his self-proclaimed rival.

Something seemed to shift with Lance in their proximity. "You know," He said, voice a little softer, "I'm actually pretty disappointed Red hasn't proposed yet. That's what you're doing, right? You can't keep me in suspense forever, here, Keithy."

"Don't call me that." Keith's flush was immediate, their positions intensified when he thought of how far he'd gotten in his character's adoration for Lance's. "Red will propose when he's ready."

A soft gasp. "So he  _will_ propose?" Lance asked gleefully, face falling as Keith stepped away.  
"I mean, if that's what Azulle wants, Red would probably know. He's pretty intuitive, like I keep telling you guys." Keith took another deep breath as he headed towards his bike as casually as he could.

Lance fell into step behind him easily. "That's true, but not when it comes to Azulle. Remember when they first kissed? Red has no idea what Azulle wants, like, ever. He just knows he wants to do it. Which is the sweet part." A wistful tone carried into the lankier boy's words, "They just want to make each other happy. What have you got in store for the party without Red next week? No more angsty knife hunt for now, I guess."

Keith turned suddenly, almost bumping into his shadow of a friend and leaning back against his bike to feign casualty again while he spoke. "It's a really basic dungeon. I know I can DM because I used to do it for Shiro and Matt between their competitive complicated backstory campaigns, but I..." A frustrated noise bubbled from his throat, and he was surprised to hear Lance's hum of understanding.

"You don't want to. You're a simple guy, Keith. I like that." In the dim moonlight, there was the smallest hint of color on Lance's cheeks, but he carried on, "Yeah, I always feel like I'm not doing anything right when I DM, so I haven't done it since the group became the whole group, you know? I can only imagine between Shiro's sad shitshow of tragedy and Matt's eternal moral quests that you just don't like to break into those types of stories. Oh, man, especially since you're the follow up to Allura's fallen kingdom story. Damn, that one was good. Did you see me crying an hour ago? I was hoping it wasn't obvious, but man...That was brutal."

"She's really bent on painting the Galra dirty." Keith commented quietly after Lance visibly realized he had rambled a little, shoulders bunching. "But yeah...I'm more so into the actual playing. I know I can do it, but it's not my thing."

Lance shrugged and moved to lean next to Keith on the bike gently. "It is what it is. You'll do fine, especially because Pidge complains the most besides me and she only wants a quest to move forward. You'll definitely meet that criteria if you're a hothead DM as much as you are a player."

"Wait," Keith paused in their conversation, gesturing towards Lance with a loose hand while the other crossed over his chest. "You DM?"

Soft blinking replied, and the dim hint of color came to his cheeks again. "Yeah. Blumfump taught me officially, actually, and I did campaigns with Pidge and Hunk mostly, but that's how I met Plaxum and Swirn and them in the first place." After a quiet second, he added, "I actually saw you, Shiro, and Matt at the Post playing a few years ago...Pidge caught me staring and that's how I met her. Then Blumfump eavesdropped and started forcing all the information about the game on me. Fun times."

"We haven't played at the Post in ages." Keith nodded, remembering back when they used the store-provided resources before they had all the books of their own. Coran had aided their collection, for sure, in the end. "You should DM next week." He said decidedly.

" _What_ ?" An uncharacteristic squeak came to Lance's voice as he glanced fast at Keith's serious expression. "It's your turn, man."

"No. I don't actually have anything ready. Shiro just volunteered me because he knew I can throw things together last minute. You're really good at weaving stuff together, though, and I know you help Allura all the time, even when she isn't realizing it. You DM. We can still do it at my house." Keith explained, crossing his arms a little tighter when he realized the dampness of his palms.

"You don't have to  _sacrifice_ your DM moment just because you know I've done it before." The reluctant boy huffed, swinging his leg onto the bike at last, "You might never get a chance again. You know Shiro and Allura keep plots lined up months in advance. Allura would have started another  _tonight_ if Pidge hadn't been so salty about her new Dwarven pot."

Keith slid into the space on the bike in front of him, passing a spare helmet Hunk must have left on the handlebars to Lance as he pulled on his own. "I'm not sacrificing anything." He rolled his eyes, unable to fathom the concept of it being such a loss. Almost hesitantly, he added, "We can...do it together, if you want."

"Co-DM?" Lance scoffed but paused as soon as the sound had left him. "Well. Okay."

"Really?" Keith twisted in his seat just as Lance wrapped his arms around him, causing a proximity unprecedented by the physical contact. Realizing the intimacy as soon as it occurred, Lance flinched, but stubbornly did not move his hands from Keith's front. This close, and so focused on the other boy, Keith could clearly see all the color rushing to Lance's cheeks in a rosy bloom. "We can—" He swallowed, realizing his voice was thick and Lance was too close, "We can plan at my house sometime this week if you want."

"You have to let me know when you're not stuck in Emo City." Lance said, slow and quiet. The jab at Keith's job was lost as Keith gave a slight nod and turned again. His hand hovered over both of Lance's on his midsection before he seemed to right himself, feeling the bike rumble to life underneath them and blazing forward to take their new dungeon master home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god it's a series sort of. Will they ever kiss???????? Date??????? Idfk.  
> Emme told me to do it so I'm weak and I did. I haven't played real DnD in forever but I'm doing it tonight and I'll be damned if I don't learn from the experience and project it into my Klance fics. Also, if any of you are wondering they're all about college age here, still trying to push through shitty jobs (I fight for Keith working at Hot Topic and you should, too) and find relaxation time in living in fantasy worlds. Woot!! Stay tuned! Maybe!
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr!](http://2towels.tumblr.com)  
> 


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